Pennsylvania Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program

This project is designed to evaluate a statewide, hospital-based parent education program to prevent abusive head trauma (AHT) in Pennsylvania, and investigate the additional effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of "booster" sessions of parent education delivered to parents at primary care provider offices in central Pennsylvania.

Specific Aims:

1. Assess the effectiveness of an established statewide program of hospital-based postnatal parent education about violent infant shaking, provided at a single consistent point in time between the infant's birth and hospital discharge, in reducing the incidence of AHT. 2. Identify which component(s) are the most important mediators of the intervention's effectiveness; determine whether the intervention effect is more directly related to changes in perpetrator or caregiver behavior; and determine the effectiveness of the intervention among various socioeconomic groups. 3. Determine the cost effectiveness of the hospital-based program. 4. Establish the feasibility, additional costs, and effectiveness of a combined program of repeated exposure delivered both post-natally in the hospital and during follow up 2-, 4- and 6-month outpatient health maintenance visits with the pediatric care provider.

Completed

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Key information

Conditions

Injury Brain Diseases Brain Injuries Brain Injuries, Traumatic Central Nervous System Diseases Child Abuse Craniocerebral Trauma Nervous System Diseases Trauma, Nervous System Traumatic Brain Injury Wounds and Injuries

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

About this study

Upon the birth of the child, all parents (mothers, and whenever possible, fathers or father figures) will be asked to read written materials and view an 8-minute video on the dangers of violent infant shaking. Parents will be asked to voluntarily sign a commitment statement affirming their receipt and understanding of the materials; these commitment statements will be sent to the Principal Investigator. A random subset of parent participants will be asked to voluntarily answer a short questionnaire about their impressions of the materials. In addition, 31 counties in central Pennsylvania will be randomly divided into two groups. In 15 counties, the hospital-based intervention will remain as described above. In the other 16 counties, all primary care providers having offices in those counties will be asked to provide all parents of newborns at the 2-, 4-, and 6-month immunization visits another set of written materials about violent infant shaking and voluntarily sign a response form that they read and understood the materials. Participating parents in this group will also be asked if they would be willing to complete a short telephone survey when the infant is 7 months old (and if so, asked to provide a telephone number). The telephone survey asks questions about the intervention materials and parents' perception of the information, and seeks to determine the mediators of a program effect. An invitation letter will be sent to a control group of parents who do not receive the office-based intervention to ask if they would be willing to complete the short telephone survey when their infant is 7 months old.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

Parents giving birth in a PA hospital

Treatment and study plan

PA Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program: State-wide

Behavioral

Upon the birth of the child in a Pennsylvania hospital, all parents (mothers, and whenever possible, fathers or father figures) will be asked to read written materials and view an 8-minute video on the dangers of violent infant shaking. Parent education materials contain four key messages: crying is a normal infant behavior, how to keep calm when an infant is crying, how to help calm a crying infant, how to select other caregivers for your infant. Parents will be asked to voluntarily sign a commitment statement affirming their receipt and understanding of the materials.

PA Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program Booster: Central PA

Behavioral

All primary care providers serving families of newborns in half of the counties in Central PA will be asked to provide all parents of newborns at the 2-, 4-, and 6-month immunization visits another set of written materials about violent infant shaking and voluntarily sign a response form that they read and understood the materials.

Primary outcomes

Incidence of abusive head trauma in infants

Time frame: 3 years

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Fed

Collaborators

American Academy of Pediatrics
Pennsylvania Department of Health

Registry information

Important dates

Study start: 2008
Primary completion: 2012
Study completion: 2012
First posted: Aug 1, 2008
Registry last updated: Feb 9, 2015

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

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This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

Published trials that share one or more normalized conditions with this study.

Completed